Centre to step in to support wind power firms

The central government is looking at stepping in to support the wind power producers who has been waiting for long to recover bills from some of the power distribution companies, said Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy.

The Union minister also said said that the centre would support the energy producers from the National Clean Energy Fund to overcome the financial issues faced due to the non payment of discoms.

“There are companies which has not been paid for last 14 months. The developer should not suffer because the distribution companies are not paying them. The central government will step in to support,” said Abdullah.

He also said the Generation Based Incentive (GBI) scheme, once it is announced, should be calculated from the beginning of a fiscal year, rather than calculating it from the beginning of the month the incentive would get established.

The GBI, which was discontinued by the end of last fiscal year, which was an incentive of 50 paise per generated unit with a cap of Rs 62.5 lakh per mega watt of capacity. The industry had appealed the GBI should be 80 paise per unit for 10 years, without a cap, which would help the industry to enjoy the benefits after fulfilling its financial commitments like repayment of loans.

He also said that wind energy industry should not suffer due to lower tariff while the other sectors see an increase of price according to the increase of cost. He said that the ministry would take up the matter with the concerned ministry soon.

He also offered his ministry’s support for the wind energy industry to ease their difficulties and work better towards providing more power to the country. He also requested the industry to upgrade with latest technology for better results.

Further the government is planning to set up geothermal power projects and the first geothermal project is expected to come up in Ladakh.

With a present installed capacity of over around 26 GW of grid-connected power, India today stands among the top five countries of the world in terms of renewable energy capacity. Renewable power represents about 12 per cent of total installed electricity generation capacity in India. This represents an almost 150 per cent increase in the past five years alone. Investment in renewable energy grew by 52 per cent last year and contributed nearly $10.3 billion.

The government is planning to add around 30 GW of renewable power by during the 12th Five Year Plan.